


Dead Weight

by Moonsetta



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsetta/pseuds/Moonsetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only Tim would let him help... Everyone knows that Batman and Robin will never die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Darkness and dread filled the place as the iconic Boy Wonder dug a rut into the stone wall of the Batcave with a 10 year-old Batarang that had definitely seen much better moments. There were some miniscule blood 'splats,' for lack of a better term, on the tipped bladed edges of it as gravely dust stuck to the blade. Hidden blue eyes glanced upwards at the sound of a bat screeching. It had heard something. He was returning.

_He was 90 seconds from entering the cave._

The sting under Robin's chest had scarred over by now, but whether the wound was of only external or internal origin-it had become a ghostly hole underneath his once freshly sewn together skin now. He tried to decide what exactly his thoughts were. The boy could only clear enough of the foggy mind haze to realize that the thoughts weren't drifting, as many people put it in words both written and spoken to others, but that they were sharply scattered-like the box of dominoes upstairs that were stamped out across the raised marble platform that stood directly in front of the main room's fire place.

They were wooden and he could have-should have-burned them in the fire. Of course there were problems with that. The fire place hadn't housed a decent fire in about three months, so burning the dotted cookie-looking things wouldn't have happened anyways. The child raised his head and tilted it backwards as three more screeches rang out from above.

_60 seconds from entering the cave._

The Boy Wonder had been waiting for something to break in the guy, but now he was beginning to think that perhaps a lot had broken inside the man a long time ago. The Manor, the Cave and even the guy's presence were all…chilly. Once again, lack of a better term. He thought that a long hyphenated word that made no sense would fit the bill of the situation much more efficiently but it wasn't his mindset at the moment.

-It never really was. Half of the Bats above started squirming; it looked like a bunch of penguins waddling, and tiny screeches escaped their mouths. The screeches weren't as loud as before, but Robin hated that the little waves of echolocation reminded him a secretive Midwestern death bell.

_20 seconds until-_

The child heard something dragging and guessed it to be the armor that hadn't been cared for in quite a while. The front left edge of the rotor was damaged and the axel needed realigning. He would need to get busy as soon as he dealt with this. 'This,' being something that he should have done a long time ago. If he could just go back and snatch it before-stop him before he- Robin breathed an irritated sigh and tossed the old Batarang into the darkness, deciding to send those particular thoughts into the forgotten darkness.

_8 seconds_

Green gloves and boots dug into the stone floor and wall before the colorful figure stood up. He reached up to run a hand over each side of his green mask to ensure that it was on securely. He let one fall onto the yellow 'R' that rested over his heart, keeping the other on his mask. He was Robin. He hadn't bothered to contact anyone for near half of a year now and as the engine roaring reached his ear, Damian had to force himself to NOT think about the long ago last meeting he had had with his father. And his last moments with the others after-

_3_

Throwing his arms into a tensed, strait-down position at his sides, Damian Wayne made his way to the spot where he would stand right in front of the Dark Knight when he climbed out of the Batmobile.

Given the lack of light (When had replacing lights taken such a faraway back seat to everything?) he didn't see much other than shapes in the atmosphere that were about 15 percent darker than the actual air that filled and suffocated the cave. The largest and loudest shadow stopped directly in front of him and the Wayne heir began speaking as soon as the door to the vehicle opened.

"Damian?"

All he got was that startled gasp of his name as he started speaking. He had already planned his speech and had promised himself that this would be the only weak moment that he would allow his mind to get lost in that memory. It would be better if no other thoughts were able to alter or give a sheen shade of variance to his perfectly chosen and carefully constructed one-way conversation. He even closed his eyes when his lips spoke only the second sentence of his long monologue.

He didn't let his mind wander. True it would only hinder his approach to the Dark Knight but allowing it to truly 'wander' was dangerous, so he allowed it to skip and splinter over the memories instead.

* * *

"Behind you Robin!"

The Boy Wonder turned sharply and sliced at the alien slug with his sword. Seriously! An alien invasion on his birthday!

OK, so he had been quite adamant about not caring for or wanting a birthday party at first but he couldn't decree that he disliked the attention exactly. Sure, most of the people were idiotic embers of high society that lead boring, meaningless lives. He conceded though, that he had been enjoying everyone showering him with gifts. Who cared if his mother had disowned him-the royal blood that made him a prince still flowed through his veins. Admittedly, the older women gushing at how cute he was he could've done without and he wished he could've chased a few of the more annoying people out of the manor.

The party had been Grayson's and Pennyworth's idea.

And here he was working on trying to fight his way, with various members of various superhero-teams, through an army of slugs that were slithering around in the extraterrestrial acid that seeped out from their underbellies. He could be back home, dining on that giant cake dotted with hand molded candy that gleamed as numerous gemstones surrounded by a spicy cinnamon sugar, all topping the silk velvet cream icing that shined in disguise as gold dust. He couldn't complain too much when Grayson and Pennyworth had presented it to him.

Damn these slugs and alien invaders! He wanted to eat his cake!

He had no patience to deal with some Tron-wannabe aliens that had nothing better to do with their time than attack unsuspecting planets in a pathetic search for Helium. They could get it from the stars instead of invading earth!

Oh, if he ever got his hands on this alien leader!

"Robin, I need you to fall back and hit an offensive strike on the group's right side."

Slicing up another one of the purple slugs with his new sword, also a recent birthday present, he raised a hand to the com-link in his ear, "Care to explain why Batman? The sooner we take these guys out-"

Grayson's voice came back over the line, "For one, Bruce and Oracle need the stasis field down there so they can get a lock on every other ship surrounding the planet, and two-these slugs are just the pets."

"Perfect," Robin said with a sarcastic scoff as he turned and searched out a thin trail that would allow him to back away from a lot of the invaders and find a way around to the side of the ship

"Don't worry Robin. I've still got another present for you later. Your party is long from over."

"Tt! Whatever."

Being a diligent, good hero, the Boy Wonder made sure to spot check the other heroes fighting the same battle as he made his way to the far side of the alien ship, that had landed with mainly the pet slugs, where their local tech team had located a mass amount of electric activity that they estimated to be a technical control center for the ship. Access to it would give them an opportunity to track all of the other ships.

Thankfully, his father was in Hong Kong where an 'old friend' had managed to develop a device that would decode any information from the alien ships that they could recover. All Damian knew beyond that was that the 'old friend' was a retired superhero but his father hadn't said much more than that. Truthfully, Bruce Wayne didn't actually know that his son was out fighting the alien slugs at all.

What he didn't know-wouldn't hurt him.

He had just reached the thin but solid wall of the ship and sliced through it, a purple goo had oozed out in response, when his partner's voice came back on the com-link.

"Red Robin, Superman and I are inside Robin; call the heavy hitters to draw the slugs away."

"Tt. Fine, but these dirt-eating, extraterrestrial vermin are hardly a threat. I'm wasting my time here."

"Robin!"

Great, he could just see the look on Grayson's face with and without the cowl.

"I'm on it Batman."

Running under the influence of adrenaline for the remainder of the battle, Robin found himself only angrier. All the slugs were sliced up and the ships around the world were being taken down by the majority of the Justice League. Batman, Drake and Superman were taking forever within the scouting ship that had landed. Every hero had had instructions from Batman to scan the surrounding area when the army of slime creatures were destroyed, but Robin had decided to stick around and rightfully display how pissed off he was to Grayson when the idiot finally finished the data retrieval. Well, that was actually Red Robin's job. 

TT! He would have been a better choice than Drake. 

The young hero only held out for about five minutes after the area had been deserted and decided to follow his partner into the ship.

He didn't remember the intimate details of the hallways or any rooms that he passed. He did realize that the ship was much too quiet and that's what made his feet quicken that slightest bit and that last room he came to…

He couldn't exactly remember what was in the room or the fact that his green boots sunk into a pile of blood in the doorway. What he saw…how cliché was just that?

That was the first sting under his chest where the rocky terrain had scraped the top layer of his skin after one of the slugs had puked acid in his direction. He noticed the figures in the measurable distance at first and then the Tron-wannabe aliens at his feet.  
Black cloth folded over itself with wet blood stains against the far wall. His mentor's black gloved hands were holding the cape and cowl of his uniform and he was bent forward slightly, blood dripping down his chin, as he spoke to the figure in front of him too quiet for Robin to hear. 

The one in front of him?

Red Robin, Tim Drake.

Drake's hands were clutching the black cloth of the Batman cape, staring at the bleeding form of his brother in shock.

Then, Damian was able to hear.

"Tell Bruce I'm sorry. Take-care of…him."

Then the dead fell forward and Red Robin only continued to stare in fear and shock.  
The air choked the two birds.

* * *

The invasion had been a complete disaster for everyone-but that was another story.

"You need my help."

Unconsciously, one of Damian's hands had traveled up to the birthday gift he had gotten at that time. He knew the wooden domino might have left splinters in his hand if he hadn't had gloves. The domino set. He had thought it to be stupid afterwards.

-Until he found bloody fingerprints with a black light and later learned that Dick Grayson had made each one by hand (later found to have been done at that ridiculous workshop party he had forced Damian to at the local hardware store) and that the black dots of paint on one particular domino had been just a cover for the gems embedded into the wood. The assassin truthfully shouldn't have been surprised by the return of the jewels. He had told the story of their existence only to his best friend, Colin. He bet all his belongings that the red head had passed on their story to his eldest brother.

This single domino, the 4/6 domino, stood for his birthday.

The lights of the Batmobile flared to life and the dark figure in front of the boy stood out like the proverbial pink elephant in the room.

"Grayson would not wish for this."

The Dark Knight just kept staring down at the Boy Wonder.

"And it was not your fault that the invaders retraced the signal back to them. Gordon's and my father's deaths were not your fault either."

All in one move it seemed, the cowl was pulled back and the older hero dropped to his knees before reaching out and pulling Damian into a hug. 

"I'm sorry!"

"Tim."

The man just held him tighter.

"It's not your fault. You need my help."

After all, it had been three years since Damian had left Gotham.

"Batman and Robin will never die."


	2. Chapter 2

The old fireplace mantle was buried under dust and ash that might have found better salvation in the broken cave beneath the proud manor. Damian decided that it would be the first thing to tackle. Sweeping ashes and debris into a three-fourths broken dustpan that had been left in a corner of the library; he simply tried not to breath.

Sweep a bit, breathe a bit, and repeat.

He kept the pattern up, simply because a pattern meant order.

This place needed order.

True, the long line of cleaning supplies he had pulled together and set down beside the fireplace were all soldiers from when war was outside the home, but they didn't leave anything for him to grasp at. A wisp of fading detergent he couldn't remember. So, he took the moldy water from a never-drained bathtub and tore an old jacket of his father's apart for a hand full of rags before having the moth-eaten cloth dance over the dirt and grime. It was a crude musical in his mind as he attempted to get his mind to communicate to the bones in his hand to apply pressure to accomplish the act of actually removing the mess.

He failed and he was strangely OK with it as he let the mold, shades of the sickest yellow, the bloodiest brown, the richest green, the filthiest white and even the innocent black hue of a chalkboard somewhere in the back of his mind, dance over sediment that didn't have an clue to its own existence.

The teen's eyes were weighed down by the afterglow ghost of sleep. He forgot the last time he had slept.

In a tree somewhere he believed.

He suddenly had to breathe deeply and the boy rocked back to fall among ruffled newspaper and magazines that told him of a world he regretted not seeing when he had been able to see it. Now he was blind to all of it. The continual smiles and beautiful tarnished photos were outside of the war they fought.

A war so painstakingly beautiful that everything was a blackboard of an average child's elementary days.

He had dropped the rag he had held for no purpose and raised his hand over his head as he tried not to stare past it at the ceiling: the same occasional patches of mold from the water. He shook most of them off and didn't protest three drops of the water exploding against his forehead.

The smell was horrible but he hesitated breathing again-so it was fine.

He lay there, trying to think-because trying NOT to think was just too much.

He had to help here…he COULD help here. Help…him.

Emotions long held had been buried under garbage of events, false-faces and lies so unorthodox that human emotion and/or nature could not alone be applied to them.

He had Tim left.

Frustrated-Damian got to his feet, tossed the bucket of moldy water, the rags and most of the cleaning supplies out the nearest window, which was already broken, before pulling back the bleach (three years past expiration) and scrubbing down the fireplace with a torn and long abandoned pillowcase that had escaped the moths' years of feasting.

The fireplace gleamed a shade he would confuse with ebony marble much later.

Damian pulled a small paper bag from the top of the mantle above the fire place, held it over his face and breathed in the unfamiliar scent of sandalwood and the wisps of burning African grass.

He thought it might be in someone's memory.

* * *

The boy found himself lost in something an hour later as he tested the weakness of the floorboards while he walked along hallways that longed for old times as much as the newspapers on the den's floor did.

He wasn't lost in memory, not in the sights, not in the loud sounds, not the odors of decay or even the taste of the air that could only be vented into the pits of the underworld and be welcome. Damian decided it was his displeasure of getting lost in a sixth sense that made him stop and catch sight of the distant movement of the door he wasn't too familiar with.

"Tim."

He didn't need to speak any louder, though the loud silence of the black halls begged for a little conversation, or just a little breath to blow away chalky ash dust. Perhaps then it could pretend to be draped in golden curtains of wealth much too large for humanity.

"Why did you come back?"

The younger didn't enjoy talking to a door, but he understood the comfort of having something between you and a threat. For him, a blade resting along his knuckles and fingernails was more than enough, but Tim needed the door between them to communicate openly. He understood-not that he liked it.

"You need my help."

The words he wouldn't have spoken so many years ago were now so soaked with him that the boy could near feel his own name with every sentence his lips dropped onto the protesting floorboards below his green booted feet.

"I'm Batman."

"Was it not you that told my father that Batman needs a Robin?"

A whimper.

"What do you want from me?"

What he wanted? He wanted the man to wave some ridiculous magic wand and take everything back to any moment they could influence to change the world.

But Damian didn't have an answer to give his older brother. No comments. No complaints. No remarks that were so sideways that the earth itself would shift orbit.

He swallowed something in the air-the extreme warmth of a dry bone perhaps, though he could be mistaking it for the taste of bleach and a chilled fire because this was not the time to draw up a memory an aged man would leave in a childhood little red wagon in response to Alzheimer's or what he was beginning to believe was simply selective amnesia. A defense response he wanted to research further.

Despite his sympathy-Damian reached out and shoved the door open. The man inside was sitting on the edge of a bed long run down from use but it was covered with clean sheets and blankets. There was no debate that his father's bedroom was the cleanest in the entire mansion that used to be home. Tim didn't bother to look up at him; his blue eyes were shooting transparent daggers into the floorboards at his black booted feet. No one came to the Manor anymore; the city council thought it was abandoned.

In a way-they were right.

Though the cowl was down, it was the most awkward scene to put the Bat-suit in.

Tim Drake hadn't changed. Not at all. Even in the Bat-suit he was still the same…all broken.

The bird hadn't removed his mask earlier, but did now as he crossed the floorboards to reach the man's side. He didn't sit though.

"I want you to be alive."

He was gifted with the silence of a mute.

"THIS!" he suddenly yelled, turning and motioning to the hole-filled walls, "-Drake! Is not living!"

"I'm living," the man meekly protested, his blue eyes finally snapping up and then narrowing into a harsh glare for a moment before draining empty again.

"You're surviving! And only surviving!"

Damian closed his eyes and imagined chewing on a stick of gum. It didn't help move anything. So, he reached out and slipped his green gloved hand into Tim's. For a moment, the teen was just imagining it was Dick's hand, or even his father's. But no-this was Tim Drake. He got the widest eyed look for his action but he needed to do something, now!

The younger searched his memories. What to do now?

"Damian you-"

"Quiet!"

The bird let his mind simmer for just a moment before he let go of his brother's hand to replace the green mask on his face. Tim just stared at him, half in confusion and three-fourths in fear before the boy reached out and around his head to grab the cowl.

"What are you-?"

"Silence, Drake. Be still."

Tim strangely obeyed and closed his eyes as the black cowl was pulled back to hide the visage of a man lost in a war. Then his hand was taken again, and before he could breathe out a question Damian was already pulling him out the door and into the ash-laden hallways that still called for a wealth that wasn't worthy of hourly struggle.

"Where are we going?"


	3. Chapter 3

Damian took a bite and bit back a growl at the same time. There was something that tasted like butter and chives on the cheese. But he digressed.

Atop a pair of headless gargoyles, the Dynamic Duo watched the movie of the city streaming by, with little regard for the sounds of the gleaming buildings or the laughter of the citizens. Blood below the bustling bellows of the bulging lives dripped into an open manhole, but there were few that paid it any mind; especially the bat and bird that sat even above the wind that rarely brushed back locks of red.

Cowl and mask were on, and the old Batarang reappeared in Robin's hands as he took in the painting of the city he had left three years ago. It was so little time against the eternal life of time. Time…an eternal parting gift from something or other that everyone gave a name.

"Our first night out, Grayson got me a pizza."

Under the cowl, Tim shrugged in half defeat and half struggling relief. He simply gathered the excess cloth of his black cape in his hands, one quarter hoping he could strangle out the darkness…the past. He didn't care much for the round circular Italian food object that set between them. The city was so picture-perfect. It made him sad. It was inevitable that the world didn't stop because of personal tragedy. Even their superhero lives didn't stop completely. There was something akin to submission among the darkness of Gotham City still, despite the Utopia it now appeared to be.

Now, it wasn't like Gotham used to be. Crime was near non-existent and heroes just weren't needed any longer. Sadly, if blood stained a cape any longer, there would be no hesitance among the lights of the city to gobble down what was left of the city's once dark savior. Goodbye. Goodbye, dark night. There is lighted hope now. Retreat to your shadows, we don't need you any longer. Streets still whistle their past tunes, but we're OK with that. We accept that the past is there, but we've come upon reality enough to move on.

It was all better in the end, the Dark Knight thought as he glanced sideways at the brightly colored teenager at his side. Said teenager just took a bite of his slice of pizza, all topped with peppers, olives and other assorted vegetables. There was something innocent in all of that, like the cliché white veil of an angel's wings, or bloodstained white pearls hitting asphalt that was all broken into puzzle pieces of that everlasting subject of Time. Time, it was just raining with their short lives and sharp knives to further transform debates of power and will into pincushions of mis-thought.

Licking red sauce from his lips, Damian smirked. Who would have guessed it at all? Gotham Utopia. A world without evil was a world without good. Funny, everything didn't need balance. If one thing was without balance, it would balance itself in retaliation to chaos. It was just how it was and the Boy Wonder was proud for the 99 steps he took to reach the answer. All was possible, he just needed Batman. And maybe…Batman needed him.

Then again, he didn't need Drake. But Drake needed someone. Bruce Wayne had wanted to leave behind a legacy, but it appeared that failure loomed on the horizon if Timothy Drake did not realize his potential. If he continued to go on surviving as he had been, there was what? Maybe ten minutes of the true Timothy Drake that Damian would be able to see. Tim…needed him.

Batman needs a Robin. Tim had said that to Bruce. Now, Damian had said it to Tim. And the context of the line hadn't changed.

Funny how time changed everything: definition, truth, belief, morality, acceptance, history Damian tilted his head into the wind at that thought and took a large bite, letting the peppers atop the mozzarella overtake his senses. Burning. And for just a moment, he wasn't human. His taste buds burned into numbness, his sense of smell was smothered into non-existence, the nerves beneath his skin shrunk away into oblivion, the burning sensation spread out to close his ear drums off from the world and his eyes blurred, blinding him. The last thing he did feel before the space of inexistence was that the pizza sauce had stained his lips and right cheek.

"Don't do that," Tim reprimanded eyeing the large amount of peppers that left the piece of pizza and disappeared into the boy's mouth.

Damian didn't hear him and had sloppily allowed sauce to splatter against his face. Numbness still filling him, Tim reached out towards the pizza box. Damian had gotten the pizza for him, but he hadn't touched it.

In the night winds above the city the Dark Knight finally reached out, a napkin between his gloved fingertips as he wiped away red stains from dark tanned skin. A face already absent of the owner's previous innocence. The burn had just faded when a green gloved hand rocketed up and clamped itself around Batman's wrist.

The kid had taken him out to get pizza. Really?

The remainder of the slice of pizza was dropped off of the twenty story building, the napkin fluttered to the gargoyle below, the boy turned and Robin glared right into Batman's face, still grasping his wrist too tightly as he growled out a sentence through his teeth.

"You better say something Timothy Drake or you won't see me again."

Batman didn't react at first. He just stared at their gloves hands, trying to put…something together in his head. He had hugged Damian when he had found him in the Batcave upon his return from an unnecessary patrol. But, why? He thought back to their first meeting. The Demon had been a brat and that had instantly bred hatred between them. He didn't care what happened to Damian. At first, he had promised himself to be civil when he heard Bruce had a son. Sure, the fear had been there in the form of: How could he mean anything to Bruce when the man now had a real, true, biological son? His own flesh and blood?

Could a nurturing bond outlive one of nature?

Did one of flesh have right over one of experience?

He didn't know-still didn't know, but he felt he had to respond to the boy. Logic, at least told him that the boy wouldn't have returned without intention. If it had been to take over, Tim himself wouldn't still be in the suit.

So he spoke, very lightly.

"I don't know why you're here."

The Boy Wonder looked prepared to STAB him.


	4. Chapter 4

The duo's return had been…clammy.

Truthfully, Damian had no plan of action. None whatsoever. His only future plan of any kind was locating his old room, straitening the place up so that it didn't look too much like a cell, preparing his bed to be slept in for the night and then…exploring Wayne Manor.

Finding many loose boards and nails, Damian set to work, covering the holes in his ceiling and outer wall with the head of a hammer that had long ago lacked its long handle. The Boy Wonder sealed the remaining holes with a roll of dusty duct tape that he had located in a drawer laying on the floor of the kitchen, and then used the remainder of the silver tape to cover up the holes that let air in from the room beside his that used to belong to Jason Todd and those gaps that let in the haunting melodies from the possessed hallways. Very few holes littered the wall that lead to the bathroom, even if it was obvious that the door had fallen quite some odd years ago. The mirror that had been behind the sink was long gone as well, probably looted by some lost soul that had struggled on his lost way up towards the Manor on the hill. The lining of rare metals and marble around the circumference of the glass had been worth a small fortune in itself.

Prepping the bed proved to be a bit more difficult than the holey walls. Moths had taken to inviting friends to enjoy the smorgasbord that had been Damian's bed. Everything was full of holes, rips and tears; the mattress, sheets, blankets, pillows, curtains, dust covers and even the extra throws beneath the bed. So, replacing it all ate up a few hours of the assassin's time.

He had to help Tim.

Funny. He no longer had to struggle to say the name or assure his attention that his intention was to help Timothy Drake. It didn't really help or hurt when he changed the name to 'Batman' in his mind or on his tongue. So it was alright.

The Manor was in fact…a true dead shadow of its former self. Nothing shined in the darkness that encroached near the walls of every corner and no little ghost voice popped up and offered him a hearty greeting that brought back those memories best left forgotten. There was a city to get back to, given the duo's previous flight over the Gotham City's rooftops could hardly be called even a midget-based patrol. Sure, there was very little the two of them could do at the time but there was… something. Perhaps Damian had inherited it from his father; a voice calling out on some frequency that he could only barely detect. Maybe that was the city's soul still calling for help. There was very little in the way of street crime, but it still existed. So, in Tim's own words: "Why stop any crime, if you're not willing to stop all of it?"

Sure, Timothy Drake could not argue and there was a certain power in knowing that you had something over on the Dark Knight himself. Tim wasn't just in deep darkness though. This strange collection of shadows was…subterranean.

Robin located his partner in the Batcave's gym. He wasn't weight lifting or swinging from the high bars though. In fact the bars and lines set up near the ceiling of the cave and the weight set in the nearby corner were covered in tons of dust. They hadn't been used in years, probably since…

Well, detective skills didn't always provide answers that you _wanted_ -but it was an answer non-the-less and was also the absolute _truth_ of the entire thing. The same amount of dust had settled on the computers at the clock tower where Oracle had worked. Tim didn't want to touch what been _theirs'_. Not Bruce's Weight Set, not Dick's High Bars and not Barbara's Hi-Tech Computers. He had forbidden himself from them.

"It is time for patrol."

Lost, longing, blue eyes floated up from the floor and settled on the teenager in the doorway but their owner said nothing.

Enraged, Damian crossed the room and reached out for the weights that had been left on the floor. They looked as if they were abandoned coins on a sidewalk.

"Don't touch those!"

Annoying bo staff!

The long silver pole was now lying across his green gloved hand. From Robin to Batman, Timothy Drake had kept the same weapon. That made the younger hero happy for some reason. Something had stayed the same, he concluded. That was good. It meant that Timothy Drake was salvageable. But how-

Ah! Sure Tim could stop him from touching the weight set, but if he was already in the air…

The next 15 minutes of ducks, turns, flips and a chase resulted with the two sitting on the highest pair of swings near the cave's ceiling and splitting a granola bar filled with dried blackberries and bananas.

"We already ate."

"No, 'I' already ate; you haven't eaten anything in days."

Timothy Drake had nothing to say to that. After all, that was true. There was no denying that fact.

"I'm here to help you. That's what family, brothers, do. Or at least, that's what Grayson told me once."

Tim just nodded, his hand drifting up to lightly run his fingers along the edge of the cowl that hung behind his head, over his neck and on to his upper back. His last sewing job had been…horrendous. Alfred could have…but he couldn't! Not anymore!

Perturbed by the silent nod, Damian turned his own unmasked blue eyes to his older brother and reached out yet again. His hand only stopped to wrap around the elder's wrist. Black and Green. In return, Tim could only focus on one factor. Had Damian's hands always been that small? How long had he still been young? Tim felt that he had missed something. What had fate cheated him of? He was missing something. What was it that was keeping him from his last…state of joy?

Hell, he was swinging….SWINGING, with the demon spawn! Jason would have balked at the irony. Dick would have been so…happy to see them getting along. Bruce would have been relieved that they weren't killing each other.

There was something there; it was silent, invisible, intangible, but incriminating as well, even if it did lie beyond their senses. For some reason though, it kept the two swinging long enough to polish off the granola bar halves. When the last crumb was gone, Damian decided that it had to be NOW!

He turned to Tim, released his hold on the wires of the swing and plummeted to the cave floor. Bats surrounding the colorful teen, waiting for either the warm darkness of a helpful hand or the cold, damp, blackness of a still, stone death.


	5. Chapter 5

The grip around his waist was tight. So tight it squeezed the dark air from his lungs. Every moment, every hard thrown stone and yet none of those fire bright reflections in his mind, left in the single breath. It felt kind of like the universe's Big Bang in the young one's mind; small, no oxygen, silent and with very little substance. Some kind of break inside his skull.

"DAMIAN WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!"

And there it was. There! The worry. This was the guardian who had to get angry out of love.

Blue eyes shot up. The slightly splintered bat-line hanging from the dusty high wires was swaying slowly and with a static scrape like dogwood branches sliding in an uprising wind that originated from a time and place better decorated with gold.

A time that could perhaps be decorated as such again if…if this could be again.

The descent though, had been so slow that Damian Wayne wasn't aware until he felt the shock of his green boots contact the stone floor of the now run-down cave his father had so long ago made his base of operations and that so many generations of Gotham vigilantes had lived and trained in.

"ANSWER ME!"'

Years ago Damian would have attacked Drake back for raising his voice at him. The younger Wayne would not have hesitated to spill red on black.

But time…strange how everything could change with such a wilting minute hand.

"Thank you."

"…what?"

Funny how a loud voice could be muffled or toned down, like gently turning a volume wheel counter-clockwise, with such a quaint interruptive incentive.

"I said…thank you…Tim."

This new silence of stun was decadent for the hungry Fates or time as the two stood staring at one another. Tim, though winded, was still staring at the young teen while the said teen was still staring at the floor. Normally, this was a child's why of surviving shame but alas, the now teen assassin was simply trying to locate that something. Something neither here nor there but a little bit of everywhere. It WAS there. It WAS. Perhaps he could find it. It was why he had returned to Gotham.

Damian forced his eyes to scan the man before him. Had it really been so many years, Timothy Drake a teenager and he merely a ten year old boy? And now he wondered how often his brothers had stood like this in front of his father. Even if he had stood like this in front of Dick Grayson occasionally his past self would have gawked at the thought that he would standing as such before Tim-or that the young assassin would have even come to recognize the former Boy Wonder as Tim let alone the audacity of recognizing the now grown man as a possible mentor.

"The Manor…we should clean it up. Fix it," Damian said, his fingers ghosting over the edging of his belt, "I believe it is…a good choice."

OK, he had actually wanted to say to Tim and the air that it would have been a…safe option. They could spend the days sweeping away dust, finding out how to reconstruct window and door frames alike, many things needed to be replaced. A future where perhaps it wasn't as bright but there could be a certain shine to it if they tried. Far from perfection normally strived for, but possible in Time's eyes.

True, in this reality they could not change the past. The dead could not be granted life once again, perhaps reanimated through means with good intentions but unethical strategies; alas there was no revival of that spark of life. Only a mockery puppet show of possibilities. THAT was the world and life they lived. It wasn't fair or good in many ways but there was still this. Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne and Damian Wayne remained of a Legacy once so full of itself and its polar opposite that it remained the greatest contradiction of perhaps reality itself. The Dark Loner who trusted no one raised children full of hope and held his family closer than anything in existence.

This is what remained and as how consequences of life went-there were no concrete answers to death or hardships. The only result was struggle but it was an infinite truth. No answers, you simply had to move on. A hard truth for those wrapped up in the misery of pasts but a truth nonetheless. It was that had to be done in every situation

And there was the city and well-Damian had already said and thought every possibility about Gotham so there was no need to voice any of them again. Besides, repetition was…repetitive.

Damian reached out with green gloved right hand, stretched out between the two remaining members of the Bat-Family.

"There's work to be done Batman and I'd like to help."

It was all up to Tim now. Normally, perhaps if Damian were someone different entirely, the new Boy Wonder would be sweating out the moment. Would the answer be positive, negative, a shrug-off Bruce Wayne had loved to use? No way would he get the over-obsessive reaction of hope he had experienced with the World's Greatest Acrobat on numerous occasions when the ex-assassin had begun opening up.

His older brother reached up and over…clasping black and green together.

…well it was a start and both could already see the rock ledges on the way; cave-ins, rockslides, avalanches, mountains, cliffs and the like. So for now, Robin breathed a sigh of relief. It would be a long stretch of time before they could get beyond a handshake but now there was…possibility.

Now, there was…future.

* * *

"Happy Third Year anniversary," Robin said with a flourish of his yellow cape as he landed on the ledge perfectly after a triple flip from the opposite building.

A few feet in from the ledge Batman failed to fight his smirk, "Didn't we celebrate with pizza last year?"

The Boy Wonder smiled, not his usual smirk but a smile, and spoke lowly, "And the year before and the year before that. Now get over here before I eat these pizzas on my own, which I assure you I am fully capable of."

Batman chuckled under his breath before joining his partner on the building's ledge, both of them letting their legs hang in midair as they opened the top box. Supreme. Yum!

"You two are crazy."

"Ha ha Red Hood," Batman muttered beneath his breath, still keeping his eyes out over the city.

"Oh lighten up Little Wing, I'm so happy that they're getting along."

"I forgot how giddy you are Nightwing."

"Oh you lighten up too Old Man. They're eating pizza together-not trying to kill each other."

"Yes, I guess I should be thankful for that."

A silence resettled itself on the rooftop, save for the shifting of the pizza boxes.

"They're still here," Batman said, elbowing his partner in the arm.

"Don't be ridiculous Timothy the dead are dead."

"…"

"Though I doubt even death would keep them from annoying us to the end of our sanities."

"True enough, partner."

Though a note for future reference for whenever and whoever it might be needed for; slices of pizza did not work like wine glasses.


End file.
